Mozilla Firefox Quantum 57+ Legacy Extensions And Alternatives

If you are a Firefox fan than you must have experienced periodical out-dating and temporary unavailability of your favorite extension every time you update your browser. Same thing is going on with the upcoming release of Firefox which is Firefox 57. It will release from November 2017 but if you are on beta channel you can upgrade to it now, from October 2017. If you have upgraded you will notice many extensions are not compatible and since disabled by-default and there is no option available to enable them. These extensions are listed as "Legacy Extensions" which used to be listed as incompatible extensions in previous versions.

From Firefox Official Blog:

In the past, extensions often stopped working each time a new version of Firefox was released, because developers had to update them every six weeks to keep them compatible. Since extensions could also modify Firefox internal code directly, it was possible for bad actors to include malicious code in an innocent-looking extension. To address these issues, and as part of broader efforts to modernize Firefox as a whole, we’ve transitioned to a new framework for developing Firefox extensions. Outside of rare instances, extensions created with the new standard won’t break in new Firefox releases. You can still personalize Firefox with extensions the same way you do now, except they won’t break in new Firefox releases.

Source: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-add-technology-modernizing?as=u&utm_source=inproduct

I found couple of essential extensions in this list like Adblock Plus and Browsec VPN. I did some lookup and the alternatives you can use are AdBlock for Firefox (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-for-firefox/?src=ss) and Best Proxy Switcher (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/best-proxy-switcher/?src=search). 

To find alternatives click on "Find a Replacement" button next to the extension and you will be redirected to Firefox add-on pages listing alternative extensions listed under that category.

HTTP/2 is here!

The Internet we know is changing! IPv6 is already in use as we ran out of IPv4 addresses, 802.11ac standard in use which provides hi speed wireless communications and now comes HTTP/2 that is Hypertext Transfer Protocol 2.0. The current version in use is HTTP 1.1 which will soon be replaced by HTTP 2.0. It is based on SPDY protocol.

HTTP 1.1 is standardized in RFC 2068 published in January 1997 and HTTP 2.0 is standardized in RFC 7540 published in May 2015. It is developed by IETF HTTPbis Working Group which includes Mozilla and Google developers. HPACK compression was devised for header compression as GZIP was not safe anymore. HPACK is standardized in RFC 7541 published in May 2015. Compression reduces RTT for header transfer due to slow start of TCP.

Install flash player in Kali linux

Iceweasel is default browser for Kali linux which is built upon mozilla's firefox. I will show two methods to install flash player in Kali linux but it can be also used for other linux distros.

Method 1 (Long Method):

This method is mentioned in readme.txt file which you will get after downloading flash tarball.

Here is the content given in that file:

Installation instructions
-------------------------

Installing using the plugin tar.gz:
    o Unpack the plugin tar.gz and copy the files to the appropriate location.
    o Save the plugin tar.gz locally and note the location the file was saved to.
    o Launch terminal and change directories to the location the file was saved to.
    o Unpack the tar.gz file.  Once unpacked you will see the following:
        + libflashplayer.so
        + /usr
    o Identify the location of the browser plugins directory, based on your Linux distribution and Firefox version
    o Copy libflashplayer.so to the appropriate browser plugins directory.  At the prompt type:
        + cp libflashlayer.so <BrowserPluginsLocation>
    o Copy the Flash Player Local Settings configurations files to the /usr directory.  At the prompt type:
        + sudo cp -r usr/* /usr

Installing the plugin using RPM:
   o As root, enter in terminal:
          + # rpm -Uvh <rpm_package_file>
          + Click Enter key and follow prompts

Installing the standalone player:
   o Unpack the tar.gz file
   o To execute the standalone player,
          + Double-click, or
          + Enter in terminal: ./flashplayer